how can I refine silver from electronic components without nitric acid? I live in sweden and nitric acid is hard to get unless its 3% but that would require a big volume.
Any tips using household chemicals
Been refining my process for separating gold foils from gold fingers and finally getting cleaner, more consistent results.
This run had:
Still learning and improving each batch, but this is probably my cleanest result so far. Curious what you’d optimize next or what methods have worked best for you.
Finished another batch of contacts. Looking forward to the next.
someone is selling old phones for $40 how much would you buy them for?
$40 is way too much but I want to negotiate the price and get some scrap gold. I am thinking $5 - $15, but i am new to refining so I am just shooting in the dark
edit: I took apart on old nokia phone and it had more gold than other stuff. but not sure if I would make profit
I can cover shipping as this is my first 1 KG bar.
I can also polish the bar or stamp it after we agree on a deal.
I accept PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle.
Thanks!
I see every day people listing their scrap, some get sold quickly some do not. I suppose gold with stones is less desirable so might be easier to acquire, how do you appraise in this case and how do you go about refining it?
Considering doing this as I have a degree in Chem I don’t use. My only concern is not being in a rural location, is this an insane thing to get into if you live anywhere near neighbors?
Thanks again
Inherited some mining-related material from my great grandfather’s estate. My father attempted to smelt material collected from multiple locations years ago, but he was not a professional refiner. I recently had drill shavings from one of the smelted pieces assayed and the results came back around 16.18% Ag and 0.13% Au with small Pt/Pd values.
I currently have about 95 lb of powder/concentrate material plus ~1,850 g of smelted metal. I understand the sample may not represent the entire lot and that proper composite sampling would likely be needed.
Mainly looking for advice from people experienced with refining/recovery/concentrates:
- Does this sound worth pursuing further?
- What would the next logical step be?
- Any reputable Arizona refiners or buyers worth contacting?
Ultimately I’d like to either have the material professionally processed or potentially sell the lot to the right buyer.
I threw a bunch of scrap jewelry in the old crucible and melted it. I had already stripped the plated stuff, figured id have some copper in there. There was some steel pieces too. But when I poured it, I ended up with this gold looking metal. Its not gold, or at least id be shocked if it was. Must be some type of alloy I have created. Copper and zinc? Anyone ever get a result like this?
As the title says. Really just want to run one for fun but I’m wondering how long I can store “used” electrolyte before the silver and copper in it falls out of solution or if it will stay in solution for months?
This was the first melt from the silver crystal. I’m still very new to pouring the bars needs work but I was able to stamp it not the greatest. I think I might melt it down again.
Hey! Sorry for my bad english, it is not my first language.
I inherited some dental gold that i tried to sell to basicly a pawn shop.
They refused to take ist because it has residues of plastic on it.
Is it best to try to burn it of or can i use acid?
I cant tell if it is 585/1000 or 333/1000 or even lower.
I am afraid it could dissolve the gold itself because it might be not very pure.
Thank you for your advice!
Can I get some insight from the seasoned members on maximizing the procurement of scrap silver for refining. Are you guys buying sterling at regular melt price because it’s gonna go up eventually or where are you having the best luck.
I’ve been going for a about a month from thrift stores to a few garage sales and have procured maybe 20 oz of silver
Thanks gentlemen,
A.
Am not sure if i should tear into them or sell them as is. Ive read silver content is high.
Because I wasn't able to add photos to a recent reply I made to a thread here, I'm posting them in a new thread. The deep orange hue of the aqua regia and the resulting dried, precipitated gold in the crucible are the unmistakable beauty of highly refined (pure) gold, and there's nothing else on earth like seeing and holding it!
Happy and safe refining!
Harvest Day! Was actually yesterday (day 10) and it took a bit longer than expected. Had to do multiple hot distilled water rinses then test w hydrochloric to make sure all silver nitrate was removed and it’s legitimate work getting that all done correctly/carefully and then drying it.
Definitely thanks for all the suggestions, I’ll be trying a few things for my next run like not drilling bottom holes in the anode basket and I’m going to raise the next Dacron filter bag up a bit so it’s a bit further from the bottom. The bowl I’m using comes w an awesome lid btw that has a 2nd center circular lid that opens independent from the main lid so I may try propping that up a bit as well, not sure. The crystals ended up chunky enough so most of the wispy stuff that grew initially did thicken up after a few days. I had no idea what weight I was looking at and although I knew roughly what I fed in I still need to do exact calcs on how much I added. The bowl walls not growing much crystal is still a bit of a mystery but will try voltage/current adjustments to see if I can change that.
Also yes I did use straight sterling shot for this, from what I’ve read I’ll need to watch for faster copper saturation and things like palladium/other possible contaminants etc but I wanted to try this for myself (sterling shot) and will get the crystal assayed to see if I need to cement first next time. If I’m able to save the cementing first I’ll stick with sterling feed stock, it’s just easier/more economical. End total was 764.62g which is about as much as I fed in. There’s a few small undissolved pieces in the dirty anode basket but maybe 5-10g is all. I plan to make a bit more pure silver nitrate with some of this then will top up with the used nitrate. I think I can push out another 500g or so that way. Thanks again for the help guys!
Does anyone know whether or not these are worth recovering the gold out of and what the percent is.
Also what method would you use if you were to try?
Curious if these contain gold worth refining. Was told they were from minuteman rockets? Have multiples. Hefty weight
I’ll up date more pictures later. Have close to 25-30 of these. Any idea of expected precious metal content?
1 gallon water, 1 cup salt, 1tbs sulfuric acid
Stainless cathode. 12 volts to the leads.
My solution looks nasty, the items are coming out really pitted. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?
I am only submerging the handles of the knives.